The Malaysian Insider
May
10, 2013
MAY
10 — Finally the general election is over. For politicians and analysts, the
work of number crunching, deciphering the results and trying to understand the
choices made by voters is just beginning.
Some
conclusions are easy to arrive at. Firstly, despite a skewed electoral playing
ground and the rolling out of more than RM2.6 billion worth of financial and
other incentives to voters, the BN could not improve on its 2008 performance.
Although it regained power in one state and has a comfortable majority at
parliamentary level, its share of state and parliamentary seats has been
substantially reduced. Had a fair election prevailed, it would have been consigned
to the opposition benches. In fact BN lost the popular vote count by a
substantial margin nationwide. In most if not all electoral systems found in
the world, it would have been booted out of office. In our case, it came
dangerously close to it.
Barisan
Nasional: Still in denial mode
Datuk
Seri Najib Razak blamed the Chinese tsunami for BN’s lacklustre performance.
This was a knee-jerk over-reaction to the strong Chinese voter support given to
the DAP and his disappointment with it. It can also be read as an attempt to
tap into Malay public sympathy ahead of the backlash expected from Umno
conservative forces anticipated to come together to demand his resignation for
failing to deliver the highly publicised target of a two-thirds majority for
Umno and the BN.
Other
commentators including Umno ones have noted that the Umno and BN results point
to rejection not just from Chinese but also from large segments of other
voters, including Malays.
Efforts
had been made by Najib to woo just about every racial segment of the
population. In particular the Malay-dominated rural, civil service and police
and military constituencies were targeted with perks and handouts timed for the
election. For several months leading up to voting day, government and Malay media
had also given prominence to Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and other conservative
Malay leaders playing up Malay and Muslim insecurities and emphasising
the importance of preserving Malay and Islamic dominance. Their objective was
aimed clearly at bringing about the eclipse if not decimation of Dr Mahathir’s
nemesis, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s PKR and its multiethnic agenda of change,
equality and reform.
That
these failed to work was mainly due to demographic, occupation and spatial
changes in the Malay population and widespread disapproval of BN’s record of
corruption, cronyism and bad governance. Attempts to stampede the majority
Malays into rejecting the opposition through raising racial and religious
sentiments were only partially successful with young, better educated and
urbanised Malays joining their non-Malay counterparts in opting for change —
even if it was for a relatively untried, little tested and potentially unstable
new coalition.
It
is telling that despite a massive media campaign touting the stability of BN
and demonising the divisions of the opposition, the electorate in the urbanised
states of Selangor, Penang and other urban areas preferred to vote for the deep
blue sea rather than the familiar.
In
the end, the tsunami was not a Chinese one but a Malaysian urban and
middle-class one with voters who were better informed considerably less
influenced by the government and BN-friendly mass media and less susceptible to
subtle threats and not so subtle incentives, and opting to cast their vote against
the BN.
Pakatan’s
dilemma
For
the opposition, although they had their best result ever in winning the overall
popular vote both at federal and state levels and in making some inroads into
formerly unassailable Barisan strongholds, Putrajaya was too far a reach this
time.
Predictably,
and with justification, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) has blamed electoral fraud and
irregularities as the main reason for their failure to win power. Anwar, the PR
leader, has refused to accept the election results especially in closely
contested constituencies and announced that a special investigative team from
the three opposition parties will work with electoral reform group Bersih to
gather information and proof that the election was neither free nor fair.
Even
if proof of election fraud and irregularities is produced, there is no way the
opposition or any other force can persuade the Election Commission to overturn
the outcome of the election or order new elections. PR needs to reconcile
itself to the fact that it went into the elections knowing and accepting the
obstacles the ruling party would deploy to stymie the opposition including
possibly seeking to deny the handing over of power even if it was won fairly
and squarely by PR.
For
PR to keep complaining about the way the election was stolen provides BN the
justification to label them losers intent on inciting an Arab-style spring mass
revolt and bent on seizing power illegally. Better for them to take the high
ground by accepting the outcome; and leave civil society groups to raise doubts
about the legitimacy of the election results and to provide the evidence that
can help pave the way to genuinely free and fair elections the next time round.
While
the excoriation of the Electoral Commission and BN will not get PR far in reversing
the election results, critical analysis of their own shortcomings that have
prevented PR from securing a greater measure of popular support will be more
useful in helping the opposition establish a basis for an overwhelming victory
five years from now. The concern that PR offers a potentially fragile
replacement government and is badly divided on the key issue of Islam’s role in
the country’s socio-political system remains in many minds — even among staunch
PR supporters — and needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.
The
three parties comprising PR will also need to demonstrate that they have an
inclusive political vision which can garner a larger measure of political
support from Sabah and Sarawak’s natives. An important reason why BN has retained
power has been the failure of the peninsula tsunami to be replicated in east
Malaysia in 2008 and now again in 2013.
Malaysia’s
growing political maturity
What
should both sides —BN and PR — take away from the elections? Firstly, the
limited success of the vote-buying and racial chauvinism-inciting campaign
should lead both coalitions to rethink their post-election strategies and
policies. The present and next generation of voters will be even more
predominantly urban dwellers, better educated and politically informed. They
will be less easily fooled by political rhetoric or bought over by handouts and
promises of rewards — the latter is already viewed by many as akin to bribes
which have an effect opposite to that intended.
Besides
desiring fair and good governance, Malaysians crave for moderate and
accommodative policies and will reject politicians and parties espousing racial
and religious extremism. The clock may have been turned back by the
irresponsible post-election race baiting engaged in by Utusan Malaysia and Dr
Mahathir. But it cannot be turned back on the country’s growing political
maturity and the changes for the better that this will bring.
No comments:
Post a Comment